Richardson had never shied away from provocative accusations of racial inequality, but at these conferences he unleashed more vitriol than ever. After a loss in Lexington, Ky. he said he’d leave the university if the remainder of his $7.21 million contract was bought out. The worst of it came in Fayetteville:

”When I look at all of you people in this room, I see no one who looks like me, talks like me or acts like me,” he said the white reporters at the Ark. press conference. ”Now, why don’t you recruit? Why don’t the editors recruit like I’m recruiting?”

Richardson, the only black among the Fayetteville campus’s 17 head coaches according to a New York Times article, also said he was treated differently because of his race.

”See, my great-great-grandfather came over on the ship, I didn’t,” he said. ”And I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. My great-great-grandfather came over on the ship. Not Nolan Richardson.
”I did not come over on that ship, so I expect to be treated a little bit different. Because I know for a fact that I do not play on the same level as the other coaches around this school play on.”

In the ESPNU video, former Arkansas chancellor John White says the anger had boiled to a point that it could burn the university:

It was important for me that he send the message that he was happy at the University of Arkansas. Because people all over the state – particularly African Americans in this state – were watching Coach Richardson and they were making decisions about whether their sons and daughters should come to the University of Arkansas to go to school.

In the end, Richardson’s greatest strength became his ultimate undoing, Bradburd says. “We can never escape ourselves and what made him a great coach was this us-against-the-world mentality.”